Day 3 – Who, When, and Why Mummies in Egypt

DAY 3 -- This morning was the start of the time we spent with the Abercrombie and Kent tour. The tour group consisted of 18 like-minded travelers and an Egyptologist, Mr. Raafat Khattab. 

Raafat has a degree in Egyptology and has been doing this job for 30 years. He was an excellent guide and communicated extremely well with our group. 

The other travelers were in deed “like-minded.” I have heard that term used and often wondered what exactly it was trying to communicate. With the exception of perhaps 2 people in our group of 18, our fellow travelers had been to places we have traveled or they were going to travel to those places. They certainly shared the same ideas and interests that we have about travel and exploring other cultures.

One evening when we were on the Nile, I asked several of our new friends what was their favorite travel adventure. It was very interesting to hear their answers and stories about their own adventures – Africa (our favorite), Alaska, Vietnam, Australia, and Antarctica were a few of the answers.

From the first moment, I felt this was going to be a great experience.

Our first meeting was in the old part of the Mena Hotel. The walls were carved and there were many lanterns.

At our initial meeting, Raafat, our ever-efficient leader passed out small pouches filled with Egyptian pounds. The bills were small dominations so we could use them for bathroom entrance fees (EGP5, about $.28 with the exchange rate of 17.8 EGP to the dollar), tips (EGP20) and negotiating for trinkets. Hubby D and I later agreed that this was brilliant and greatly cut down on “getting change” as the vendors never would have change or asking, “how much should I pay.”  

Raafat went through his list of recommended tips and fees so that we felt like seasoned Egypt travelers already.

The first experience on our tour was the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, home to the largest collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts in the World, including items dating to 4000 BC.  Our friends KAK, YW and LW, who we had spent the previous day with, planned a visit the museum at the same time as our tour so they joined us there.

All of the visits we made to tombs and temples required a ticket.

Many of them also required that we purchase a ticket that entitled us to take photographs.

The Egyptian Museum of Antiquities opened in 1903. Construction began in the late 1800s. There are 150,000 antiquities ranging from the tiniest sculptures, stones, gems and necklaces to mummies with toe nails that appear like they died yesterday, and enormous stone tablets. 

As would be our luck, school was out for holiday and throngs of Egyptians were touring the museum along with the normal tourists. It was quite crowded but very interesting.



Crowds filled the museum.

The Narmer Palette is the first thing you see as you enter the museum. The Narmer Palette is a significant Egyptian archeological find. It dates from about the 31st century BC and contains some of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found. The tablet is also thought by some to depict the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the king Narmer. On one side, the king is depicted with the bulbed White Crown of Upper (southern) Egypt, and the other side depicts the king wearing the level Red Crown of Lower (northern) Egypt.

These two crowns are shown in all the carvings and paintings depicting the Pharaohs. You learn quickly by the crown he is wearing if he is the ruler of a unified Egypt or just the Upper or Lower Egypt.

The Narmer Palette was significant in deciphering hieroglyphics. The display case where it was displayed did not mention this fact. 

Inside the museum, the items from the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen were the most popular. The story of the discovery of this tomb was very interesting to me.

When British archaeologist Howard Carter first arrived in Egypt, most of the ancient Egyptian tombs had been discovered, although the little-known Pharaoh Tutankhamen who had died when he was a teen, was still unaccounted for. After World War I, Carter  began an intensive search for “King Tut’s Tomb,” finally finding steps to the burial room hidden in the debris near the entrance of the nearby tomb of King Ramses VI in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, Egypt. On November 26, 1922, Carter and fellow archaeologist Lord Carnarvon entered the tomb, finding it miraculously intact.

They went on to uncover the greatest treasure of the tomb–a stone sarcophagus containing a solid gold coffin that holds the mummy of the boy-king Tutankhamen  preserved for more than 3,000 years.

Pharaoh Tutankhamen was not a significant ruler however he is very famous because of all the funerary materials that were found undisturbed in his tomb.

This is Howard Carter examining Tut's mummy.

Piles of gold covered funerary materials filled the tomb.

Large boxes and chests were filled with gold statues.

This is Tut's Throne chair. It was quite amazing. Notice the arm of the chair is an eagle and also a cobra snake.

The mummy of Tutankhamen.

A solid gold cobra.

Tut's gold sarcophagus and the boxes containing it were really amazing. There were 4 of these boxes nested inside each other.When the fourth box (called a shrine) was disassembled, the king's sarcophagus was revealed. The sarcophagus was yellow in color and made out of a single block of quartzite

When the heavy lid was lifted, human shaped gilded wooden coffin was revealed. When they lifted the lid of the coffin, they found another, smaller coffin. The lifting of the lid of the second coffin revealed a third one, made of solid gold. This is a photo of the gold coffin.

Throughout the museum, the intricacy in the detail of the necklaces, carvings and sculptures of all kinds was just phenomenal. It was very hard to imagine they had been crafted in a period where tools were limited to stone and light grade copper.

Stone grinding tools.

Copper tools.

Cats were very important to the Egyptians. Thee are solid gold cat statues.

Our guide told us this was the first back pack. Therefore Egyptians invented the back pack. LOL

It was somewhat uncomfortable watching the throngs pressing down on the rare antiquities. Many of us were really conflicted on the appropriateness of removing these items from the tombs to place them on display. They are not well preserved and definitely lack appropriate protection. We understood the security is much better than it was after the Arab Spring.

Most items were just mounted on a stand and easily touched. There have been incidents in the past where they have been defaced or carved on by visitors.

THE KINGS - PHARAOHS
Just to make it a bit easier to follow (I struggled with the sequence of power the entire time I was in Egypt) here is a brief outline of the Kings of Egypt.  These are only important kings where we visited their tombs or temples. A complete list of the Pharaohs would take many, many pages to write.

Egyptians believed their pharaoh was a living God. He alone could unite the country and maintain the cosmic order. They believed that, when he died, he would achieve eternal life, not just for himself, but also for his people.

Djoser, 2667-2648 B.C. He was the first ruler of the 3rd Dynasty, whose architect, Imhotep, constructed the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, which was not only the first pyramidal funerary complex but also the earliest example of large-scale stone masonry. We will visit the Step Pyramid tomorrow.

Khufu, 2589-2566 B.C. Second ruler of the 4th Dynasty. He was the builder of the largest great Pyramid at Giza. His own burial chamber was found to contain only an empty sarcophagus.

This was the smallest statue in the museum. Odd that it is the only statue found of the Pharaoh who built the largest pyramid.

Khafra, 2558-2532 B.C. He was the son of Khufu, fourth ruler of the 4th Dynasty and builder of the second pyramid at Giza. He succeeded to the throne after the death of his half-brother Djedefra, who had constructed his pyramid at Abu Roash rather than Giza.

Khafra

Menkaura, 2532-2503 B.C. He was the last king of the 4th Dynasty, and builder of the third pyramid at Giza. He was the son of Khafra and grandson of Khufu, the builders of the two other pyramids at the site. His statue has the crown of Upper Egypt only.

Hatshepsut, 1479-1457 B.C. Hatshepsut was the first woman pharaoh. She married her half-brother Thutmose 2nd, and ruled along side him, holding most of the power. When he died, her stepson Thutmose 3rd took the throne. But he was still a child, so Hatshepsut ruled Egypt until her death. She pursued peaceful policies, building up the economy instead of fighting her neighbors. She opened new turquoise mines, sent a trading expedition to Punt, and erected two obelisks at Karnak. On the walls of her temple she is portrayed as a man, with a false beard and all the other symbols of kingship.

Notice also in this statue she is wearing the double crown, the bulbed White Crown of Upper (southern) Egypt, that fits  inside it the level Red Crown of Lower (northern) Egypt. 

This is a statue of Hatshepsut showing her head on the body of a lion. 

Amenhotep III, 1390-1352 B.C. This pharaoh ruled a huge empire at the height of its wealth. He built the colossi of Memnun and Luxor temple. He also added to the Karnak temple. His palace at Malkata was next to the world’s first known chariot racetrack.

Amenhotep III

Tutankhamun, 1336-1327 B.C. He was ruler of the late 18th Dynasty and was, ironically, one of the most poorly known of the pharaohs until Howard Carter’s discovery of his tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1922. Although the tomb had been partially robbed and resealed in ancient times, most of the funerary equipment, including the coffins and sarcophagi, were found in excellent condition, and it was certainly the best preserved of any of the royal tombs. Tutankhamun might have been only eight years old when he first reached the throne and he died at 19. However the splendor of his funerary equipment has made him very famous.
     The Curse of King Tut
Carter’s patron, Lord Carnarvon, died four months after first entering the tomb, leading journalists to popularize a “Curse of the Pharaohs,” claiming that hieroglyphs on the tomb walls promised swift death to those who disturbed King Tut. More than a dozen deaths have been attributed to the curse, but studies have shown that those who entered the tomb on average lived just as long as their peers who didn’t enter.

Tutankhamun's death mask.

Rameses II, 1279-1213 B.C. He was the third ruler of the 19th Dynasty also known as "Ramses the Great." A vast number of temples, monuments and statuary were created during his extremely long reign, including the construction of several Nubian rock-cut temples at Abu Simbel. His principal wife was Nefertari, to whom a smaller temple at Abu Simbel was dedicated, and when she died his daughter Meritamum was elevated to this position. Many historians say he lived for 96 years and is thought to have fathered over a hundred children.

Rameses II Coffin

Rameses III, 1184-1153 B.C. During his long tenure in the midst of the surrounding political chaos of the Greek Dark Ages, Egypt was beset by foreign invaders (including the so-called Sea Peoples and the Libyans) and experienced the beginnings of increasing economic difficulties and internal strife which would eventually lead to the collapse of the Twentieth Dynasty. He lived to be 65 years of age.

There was a plot against his life in the royal harem and he was assassinated. 38 people were sentenced to death after a trial.The tombs of his wife Tiye,  who orchestrated the assassination and her son Pentaweret were robbed and their names erased to prevent them from enjoying an afterlife.

Some of the accused harem women tried to seduce the members of the judiciary who tried them but were caught in the act. Judges who were involved were severely punished.

Rameses III

Cleopatra, 51-30 B.C. She was the last Ptolemaic pharaoh and only one to speak Egyptian. Cleopatra tried to prevent Rome from taking over Egypt. She had an affair with Julius Caesar, and they had a son. After Caesar’s death, she fell in love with Mark Antony. They had three children and planned to rule a mighty Kingdom together. But Octavian, who pursued them to Egypt, defeated them. Antony killed himself after receiving a false report of Cleopatra’s death. She surrendered to Octavian, but when she could not win him over, she committed suicide. The legend says she did this by clasping a poisonous asp cobra to her breast.

Cleopatra

While we toured the museum and tried to follow the sequence of all the Pharaohs, Raafat, our guide explained to us the meaning of the symbols in ancient Egypt. Many of these can be directly linked to present day symbols. Raafat explained that the Key of Life, the "ankh," carried only by members of the royal family was the initial cross prior to the cruciform. Even the crucifix was originally a T shape. The top post was added to hold the sign and inscription of the Holy Cross.



This is the Key of Life.

It was only carried by members of the royal family.

By the time of the Old Kingdom (c. 2613 – 2181 BCE) the ankh was well-established as a powerful symbol of eternal life. Scholar Jack Tresidder wrote this of the Key of Life, "Its shape has been variously understood as the rising sun on the horizon, as the union of male and female, or other opposites, and also as a key to esoteric knowledge and to the afterworld of the spirit. The Coptic Church of Egypt inherited the ankh as a form of the Christian cross, symbolizing eternal life through Christ."

Another example of meanings that translate to present day beliefs is the Egyptian trinity of gods. The trinity consisted of the god Serapis (=Osiris+Apis), the goddess Isis/Ishtar (= Hathor, the cow-moon goddess), and the child-god Horus (the Egyptian Tammuz). The trinity was the father, wife, and son. This later formulated into the Christian Trinity of father, son and holy ghost.

We finished up our tour of the museum by visiting the mummy room and then through the animal mummy room. Even the pets were preserved. One of the preserved animals was an extremely long crocodile.



Rameses II still had hair on his mummy.

As we left the museum building we passed through the souvenir shop. I wanted to give a special gift to YW and LW to show our appreciation for the wonderful time we had the previous day and in the shop I passed by a young man making engravings on brass. He had an assortment of scarab beetles and I chose one to give to them and had him engrave the date on it.


You might have heard of ancient Egyptian amulets and other jewelry that depict sacred scarab beetles.  These beetles are not mythological characters created by ancient Egyptians. In fact, they are dung beetles that were considered sacred during the ancient Egyptian period. These scarab beetles were linked to Egyptian Gods, especially Khepri, the morning sun. This God was depicted as a man with the head of a scarab beetle.

Scarab beetles are still one of the most important sacred symbols in Egypt. Later in our tour, we visited a temple where there was a statue dedicated to the scarab beetle.

We ate lunch on a floating restaurant. There were many nice restaurants that were actually boats on the Nile. We walked through one boat to get to the next boat where our lunch was served.  It was very traditional and certainly different.

This is the waterfront in Cairo taken with the panoramic view on my phone.

Here is how the floating restaurants look at night.

After lunch, we had planned to spend time with YW and LW at the NEW Grand Egyptian Museum, which is under construction. Unfortunately, things did not work out and we were not able to join them. Traffic was so heavy it took our group a full hour and a half to return the short distance to Mena House.

The next day, AKA, YW and LW were able to take the tour of the NEW Grand Egyptian Museum. We really missed something special but I was extremely happy they were able to go there.

The Grand Egyptian Museum is going to be an amazing place. We are so sorry we were not able to tour it or visit the site.

After our first day together, we gathered with our tour group for a formal welcome dinner hosted by Abercrombie and Kent. This gave us the opportunity to get to know our new fellow travelers better.

FOOD – Since coming home, I have thought about this a great deal. I took so many photos but I have only a handful of pics from the food. Don’t misunderstand, the food was fabulous. Breakfasts were just as good as any of the wonderful spreads we had in Europe in November 2017. There were meats, cheese, honey, fresh fruits and yogurts, egg dishes as well as cook to order eggs and enough sweet breads to help you gain as much weight as you wanted. Lunches were authentic and dinners were over the top.

But for some reason I did not take pictures. So I tried to find some images to just share the flavor of our adventure with you.

In Bahrain, DW and I loved the Baba Ghanoush. On this trip Hubby D even started enjoying this traditional eggplant dish.

This is Egyptian Bamia. It is made of lamb and okra. It was really good.

This flat bread was served at every meal. It was delicious. 

Bread is also an important political issue in Egypt. It is heavily subsidized by the government and was even at the forefront of the recent revolution, “Bread, Freedom & Social Justice” was a key demand and chant for protesters.

In ancient Egypt, people had different diets, depending on your social status. But common to everyone was bread. In Egyptian Arabic it is called aysh or aish. This means life.

The earliest wheats and the first breads are generally believed  to have originated in the Eastern Mediterranean. Bread stalls were found in larger Egyptian villages starting in the 12th century, B.C. And, the earliest traces of grains cooked into flatbreads are in Egypt. I guess you might say they invented pita bread. LOL

If you ask me about the single most food item I miss from Egypt, it would have to be the bread. It’s not only a major component of the meal itself, but bread is also widely used as a utensil.

What’s so special about aysh or aish? Well, for one thing, aish baladi (Egyptian pita) is unique to Egypt. Sure, you can get pita all over the Middle East and now worldwide, but Egyptian pita is something else. For one thing, it’s made fresh several times a day all throughout the country. From the farmer’s wife baking it in a traditional clay oven, to your neighborhood  bakery churning it out around the clock, there’s no reason to have stale pita in Egypt. The pita itself is unique in that it is 100% whole wheat, a nutritionist’s dream. It’s thick and airy on the inside, and has speckles of cracked-wheat throughout.

Bottom line, it was very, very good.

Quite often you would see vendors on the street selling the bread.

Juice is a favorite drink all over the Middle East. In Egypt hibiscus juice or tea is very popular. I loved it. I have never seen hibiscus juice in the US but I am going to start looking for it. In Bahrain we drank "lemon mint juice" quite often and it was an option in Egypt at all the restaurants.

I am not sure what this was but at our first luncheon the waiter made it at our table. It tasted good  with a bit of a kick to it, but it looked so strange it was hard to eat.

Baked pigeon is a delicacy in Egypt. It tasted nice but it was hard to get a lot of meat. 

Rice in the shape of a pyramid was standard fare.

Many signs like this could be seen on the streets.

Stuffed zucchini was one of my favorites.

All of our meals in Cairo started with a spread of appetizers like these. 

Going back and thinking about the food, maybe I was having so much fun consuming it, I just did not take the time to immortalize it with a photo. :-)

Our adventure was off to a terrific start with nice people, a great guide and plenty of nourishment.

Cheers,
Brenda